The myth of local control

Everyone says they support more local control of education.  Want evidence?  Here's Atlantic Monthly arguing that getting rid of school boards and returning control to the schoolhouse level.  Here's National Journal writing about how the chair of the U.S House Education and Labor Committee thinks local control is a fundamental of education reform.  Here's Republican presidential candidates Jon Huntsman and Michele Bachmann arguing for local control.  Here's Barack Obama doing the same.  And here's his federal Department of Education bragging about all its local control initiatives.

Locally, here's the Deseret News reporting on the issue last year at the legislature on a bill sponsored by Ken Sumsion, and here's Senator Steve Urquhart saying local control "is a good idea."

If so many people of so every political stripe support "local control," why don't we have it?  Why are there dozens of funding streams for education in Utah, each one coming with its own sets of rules for how schools have to spend the money.  Why, with back-to-back administrations in Washington arguing for "local control" has the control shifted more and more to the U.S. Department of Education?

Because very few people actually believe in local control.  Most people see "local control" as a way for their own control, and they really mean "local control if schools choose to do what I would want them to do," which is really code for "my control."

And the concept of local control goes hand-in-hand with something that's an anathema to many on the left--parental choice.  Without choice, local control is meaningless.

If politicians were actually willing to give schools more control, they would also have to give parents the right to choose a different school if that "control" led to policies or quality that parents didn't like.  If parents don't have that choice, then they rightfully insist that others take "control" from the local educators who screw things up.

And why don't we have parental choice?  After all, no less than the UEA-supported vice chair of the State Board of Education just published a piece in the DNews called "Educational choice for all students."  But, like most politicians, she really argues for "choice" only to the point that parents' choices agree with her own.

The ultimate local control is the willingness to give both educators and parents control in designing and attending schools. That's what we need, but it's also what interest groups with rice bowls to protect don't want.

The ultimate accountability

The Center for Education Reform is out with a new study showing something that will probably surprise most people.  Nationally, since charters began in 1992, 15 percent of schools that have operated are no longer operating--they've closed.  The schools faced the ultimate accountability that comes with failure--they go away.  Parents withdraw students, authorizers revoke or fail to renew charters.  And the vast majority of those closures took place within just the first few years of a school's existence.

Some highlights:

There are five primary reasons for charter closures – financial (41.7 percent), mismanagement (24 percent), academic (18.6 percent), district obstacles (6.3 percent) and facilities (4.6 percent). 

The correlation between strong charter school laws, accountability and effective charter schools cannot be emphasized enough. Independent authorizers have full control over how they evaluate charter schools and have their own staff and funding streams. This enables them to create streamlined, effective tools to manage their portfolio of charter schools and close those that are not living up to their contract. 

"The quality of charter schools in the U.S. is not as simple as saying ‘there are too many bad charters out there,’” said Allen. “The real story about charter school closures and accountability is that strong state charter laws and strong authorizers give schools a better chance at success because they hold them accountable and can offer them tools to succeed."

I see this as fantastic news.  I'm (obviously) a charter supporter, but I know that not all charter schools meet their goals, improve student learning, or operate efficiently.  Those schools should either improve markedly or close.  No operating schools have yet closed in Utah, though our state has a presence in the "failed to open" category.

Others might see this as an example of wasted resources.  Why should taxpayers fund another "parallel system" of schools, 15 percent of which close.  The better question is, why should taxpayers continue to fund failing schools that don't improve?  We should shutter or replace more schools than we do, we just need to spread the closure wealth to the traditional district schools that also fail to meet their goals or fail to improve student learning.

Little difference among presidential candidates on education policy

Leading education reform advocate Jay Mathews has a very interesting piece in the Washington Post describing the differences, or lack thereof, between the leading candidates for president--even between the current president and his predecessor, and between the leaders of both parties for the last ten years, on education policy.

If school policy were a prime issue and we judged the three principal contenders of the moment — former House speaker Newt Gingrich, President Obama and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney — on that basis, the race would be dull three-way tie. The president and the two Republicans each have some unique ideas for schools, but by and large they support the test-driven, school-rating, pro-charter-school policy that has ruled the United States for more than a decade, no matter which party controlled the presidency or Congress. 

That depresses the many educators and parents who yearn for schools that don’t rate students and teachers on standardized multiple-choice tests, that emphasize improving students’ home lives more than increasing the number of charter schools and that are less eager to follow the lead of billionaire reformers. In turn, the general agreement over education policy at the highest levels of both parties pleases the many educators and parents who think using standardized tests, weeding out weak teachers and giving parents more choices will help our schools break out of decades of apathy, low expectations and illogical policies.

Graduation rate is pretty low

Spin can be funny.  In the Trib today, reporters note that the state's graduation rate is 76 percent--nearly one in four students who start high school don't finish it.  Last year the state reported that its graduation rate was 90 percent.  That doesn't represent a drop from year to year, but just a change in how rates are calculated.

Judy Park, an associate superintendent at USOE, made this point in the article: "If you just look at this you would say, ‘Wow, 90 percent of the kids are graduating in 2010, now only 75 percent are,’" But she noted it’s important to look more deeply at the numbers. "It’s a change in the calculation, not a change in student behavior."

So that's the spin.  And I understand why USOE makes that the spin.  Park even argues that rates are going up.  But the unstated message behind the explanation of this year's "drop" in graduation rate is that the rate has been this bad for years, and the state wasn't telling anybody.

Thanks to UAPCS's work, Governor's budget includes startup money for charters

Responding to Utah's failure to receive the federal startup and implementation grant that has helped Utah charter schools open for nearly ten years, UAPCS knew it had a new funding priority.

For years, that priority as been funding parity with school districts. That's still a goal, but charters have learned over time to do more with less.

But without startup funding, charters would have a hard time opening.  New district schools open tens of millions of dollars in debt through the use of district bonds.  Charters don't have that option.  They therefore rely on private investors who pour those millions into Utah's public education system and provide a choice in education to Utah's families.

But without startup dollars, charter schools would open with no desks, computers, or textbooks.

Governor Herbert's budget includes, "funding to start new charter schools" according to the Deseret News, and that's entirely due to the work of Chris Bleak, UAPCS Executive Director, and his work with the Governor's office.

DNews likes choice and accountability

Using a headline that makes you think they're talking about Young Women values instead of education, the DNews editorial board has a great piece on needed reform in education.  Some highlights:

The current governance and incentives give well-intentioned, hard working Utahns the average results that any subsidized, bureaucratic monopoly is capable of providing. Unless Utahns choose to allow competitive disruption of this massive but aging monopoly that we call public education, we cannot expect anything dramatically different than our current mediocre results.

Parents should, through meaningful choice, have the right to send their children to a school that meets basic educational objectives. Accordingly, parents need the means to transparently assess finances, methods and results so that they can meaningfully exercise that choice.

In the late 1980s, New Zealand, a small nation of a little more than 4 million, embarked on a fundamental reform of its primary and secondary schools based on choice and accountability. Instead of tinkering on the margins with an unresponsive national bureaucracy that delivered poor results, New Zealand — in one unified bold move — turned every school in the nation over to a local board of trustees, gave every parent the right to send their child to the school of their choice, and allowed centrally-provided per capita funding to follow the enrollment choice of the family.

The results speak for themselves. Although there was actually little disruption in enrollment patterns, there was a tremendous increase in the sense of competition between schools and the sense of ownership by parents. Under hyper-local governance, more dollars went to teaching. According to Maurice McTigue at George Mason University, "Since reforms were implemented, some 67 cents of each education dollar is spent in the classroom, which is more than double the previous amount. Parents play the dominant role in the educational choices for their children. Learning has improved, and classroom size is down."

Some bemoan that a few schools failed under New Zealand's model of accountability and choice. We, however, consider the elimination of schools that are not meeting student needs to be a benefit, not a problem.

If I were King of the district

I've never understood why districts didn't charter more schools.  I take that back.  I think it's sad that bureaucratic inertia has kept some of the people who know education best from being part of the innovative and student-centered charter school movement.

I've been drafting this post for some time, when I saw this today in the Tribune.  (It's next to impossible to find anything education-related in the DNews since they've redone their website--if there is any education reporting going on over there anymore at all.)  The Granite District just chartered a high school for refugees.  Well, that undercuts my point of this post at some level, since they are following my advice before the post went up, but it also strengthens my argument, and I hope that other districts will follow suit.

If I were the King of a growing school district (which is most of them in Utah) I'd be a leader in charter schools.  Chartering by districts is a win-win-win situation.  I hope more districts will break free of their entropic (spell check tells me this isn't a word, but I'm using the adjective form of the noun "entropy," meaning the inevitable and steady deterioration of a system) morass.

Here's my ideal scenario, and this could work in any growing district in the state.  First, identify a non-growing area of the district.  For Canyons, this would be Cottonwood Heights or Midvale, where the school-age population is shrinking, in Alpine it would be older sections of Orem.  Most districts, even large and growing ones, have such pockets of stagnation or shrinkage.  Districts deal with this by transporting students from higher growth areas, at great expense to the district, to older schools that aren't at capacity.

Second, pick one of the dynamic and innovative principals working in the district.  Give that principal carte blance to design the ideal school.  Pretend that union rules don't apply (they don't), that district policies don't apply (they don't either), that you have a blank slate on which to design the perfect school.  Shoot for the moon.  Get really good people to serve on the school's board.

Now comes the hard part.  Close that shrinking school as a district operation.  I know that would cause some consternation among the neighbors, but remember, I'm the King.  I can do this by divine right.  And it wouldn't be so bad, anyway, because any student within two miles of the school would get preferential enrollment in the charter, if they choose to attend it.  Many will, many won't.  Those that don't will get a bus ride to another district school.

Charge this new charter school the one percent authorizer fee that's authorized by statute.  Also, charge the new charter school a market rate for rent on the older school building they occupy.  This is pure profit to the district, since the building was bought long ago and the bonds have already been paid off.  Also, my district would be the new charter's business office, again at a reasonable, market rate.

In case you missed how this is good for my district:

• I've reduced the rate of growth in my district to a more manageable level by shifting students to a new charter school
• I've turned a money-neutral asset into a revenue generating asset by leasing an under-occupied, older school building
• I've increased my per-student funding by taking advantage of local replacement funding and allowed my locally raised property taxes to educate the fewer students enrolled in my district
• I've further increased efficiency for the district by sharing the job of business management and oversight with a service contract and authorizer fee
• And most important, I've empowered one of my star leaders in the district to innovate and provide a working model for educational options that, if they are successful, we can implement across the district.

Parents nearby the school may opt to stay at the neighborhood school that's now a charter, or they may feel more comfortable and think that a traditional program they're used to is better for their child.  Since I was already busing students into this school to ease overcrowding elsewhere in the district, it costs me no more to bus those students to another nearby school.  In fact, overall transportation costs will go down as I won't be providing transportation for families to attend the new charter school.  (I'm sick of calling it "the new charter school," so I'm now naming it King Lincoln Academy, or KLA.)  My transportation system just became more efficient, too.

Parents who have been thirsty for a choice now have a new one.  I'll probably draw some parents who have previously left the district to a state-authorized charter school, each one bringing new funding.  Those students are getting just what they want from a school.  And my dynamic KLA principal is trying innovative new practices and methodologies.  Some of them get great results, and we implement them more widely.  Some aren't so good, and we abandon those before too long, learning a valuable lesson about what doesn't work.

I've now got a training ground for new teachers, a working model where we can test new theories and practices before implementing them widely.  I get to see how union rules really do affect learning and student achievement because KLA doesn't negotiate with the teachers' union. I get to experiment with different compensation models to find out what really draws teachers into the profession, keeps them there, and motivates them to constantly improve.  

And since this KLA thing went so well, I do a handful more of these schools, with different approaches to education, having several different models available to serve different models of students--no two are alike--and meets their individual needs better.  Not everything works the way I want it to, but we can make changes on a single-school basis much easier than we can steer the Titanic School District that has more than a hundred years of inertia and a mess of union rope meant to keep things as they are.

But I'm sick of the status quo.  I know that my results aren't as good as they could be, so I'm trying new things so we can identify what improves things for our students, and what doesn't.  And what works for these kids, and what works for those.  I'm trusting my parents and they return that trust in us.  Now that I have some charters, I see that 94 percent of those parents are satisfied with their school, which is almost 50 percent higher than I used to have district-wide.

I'm really liking this KLA model.  My district wins with models for innovation, increased funding and efficiency, and more satisfied parents.  Parents who choose KLA are getting what they want and are highly satisfied, and parents who choose to stay with the traditional district get more funding and the benefit of the innovations that we've discovered really work at increasing educational outcomes and parent and teacher satisfaction.  Now, which district has a King that is willing to take a bold step and lead out on reform?

A: Granite.

I hope.  I raise a glass to you, Martin Bates and the Granite School Board, and wish you the success that leads to lots of copy cats.

Culture is what counts

The Atlantic is out with a piece this month called, "Everything You Know About Education is Wrong."  (They don't mean me, but may mean you.  I know they don't mean Sonia Woodbury of City Academy, who probably could have improv-ed (I mean improvised it off the top of her head--or improv.  How do you spell improv-ed if you're not trying to spell "improved"?) this article because she's so dedicated to the same topic.

The piece references a study that shows class size, spending, "highly qualified teachers," and more traditionally accepted ingredients of a quality school actually have no correlation to a school whose students achieve.  Instead, the key factor in a quality school is the school's culture.  If schools want their student outcomes to improve, they should focus on improving their culture.

Some key paragraphs from the article:

[Study author Roland] Fryer found that class size, per-pupil spending, and the number of teachers with certifications or advanced degrees had nothing to do with student test scores in language and math. In fact, schools that poured in more resources actually got worse results.

What did make a difference? ... Schools that focused on teacher development, data-driven instruction, creating a culture focused on student achievement, and setting high academic expectations consistently fared better. The results were consistent whether the charter's (only charter school's were studied) program was geared towards the creative arts or hard-core behavioral discipline.

The findings all get summed up in a group of handy tables. First, here are the ingredients you think of as being important to a school -- what Fryer calls "traditional" resource-based inputs. Most of those factors don't have a statistically significant relationship to school performance. Some actually have a negative effect.Then Fryer compared less traditional cultural factors to student performance. Teacher feedback and instruction time had the strongest connection. In sum, these six factors explained about 50% of the variations between charter school outcomes.

Read the whole thing.

Navigator Pointe on Fox 13's Cool School

Navigator Pointe Academy, a school I helped found as its business manager in 2005, was highlighted on Fox 13's Cool School segment this week.

Letter to Santa

Gateway Preparatory Academy in Cedar City has a student that writes a letter to Santa every year that ends up getting distributed school-wide.  This is the first year I've seen it, but I loved it and post it here:

Charter schools are public schools

And so they aren't subject to wage claims made by former employees at the Labor Commission.

That's a happy lesson I learned today.

Up tree at Mountainville

On Saturday I saw this tree at the Festival of Trees:

Then today it was at Mountainville--purchased and donated by a parent.

Responding to demand or undermining existing schools?

I was part of the High Mark Charter School review committee that gave the school advice on their charter before it went to the State Charter School Board.  Every volunteer there on behalf of the school talked about how the main reason for the school was because the district had refused to build a junior high school in their area, requiring students to be bused to multiple schools in other communities.

Charter Schools are a great solution to unresponsive school districts.  Sometimes that's needed when the district stays with an unpopular math curriculum (Alpine) and sometimes, like in South Weber, when the district's decisions break up a community's children.

Charters exist to provide educational options for parents who believe their children need something different than the local district offers.  That can include community schools, if what parents believe is good for their children is to attend school nearby in a community school with their neighbors.  And if that school has a great business and entrepreneurship model and curriculum, that much the better.

But the district and its defenders continue to think that education is about the schools, rather than the students, families, and communities they serve.  See the Standard-Examiner, which I believe has never wasted ink saying anything positive about charter schools.

The new school...has received some opposition throughout the city. "I think if it was just a junior high, there would be no opposition," said Mayor Jeffery G. Monroe. "But they're going from kindergarten through ninth grade, and I think the elementary school element has people concerned that it will pull some students from the elementary school and create a problem having both schools adequately staffed."